Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

Match CEO Shuns Casual Dating on the App

YAHOO FINANCE - June 4 - Dating apps will now offer COVID-19 vaccination badges. Match and Match Affinity CEO Hesam Hosseini joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss.

Q: Can you disclose at this current moment what percentage of folks have actually chosen to have the badge? Are there any negative commentary saying we don't appreciate this new feature?
A: The feature is launching actually in a week. It's really about our members choosing to disclose that.

Q: What have you seen to back up the idea that people really want to get out there and start using dating apps, not just to meet but actually get out on dates?
A: We're seeing two parallel trends. So for some, the pandemic was a moment of reflection. And as they're getting back out and starting to date, they're really looking for something meaningful. For others, it was a year with, frankly, a lack of intimacy, and they're looking for something more fun and just more casual dating this summer. And when we saw those trends, our reaction at Match was, if you're looking for something casual, that's totally cool. Just don't come to Match. Match is built for meaningful relationships.

Q: When you look across all of your brands, which platform do you see getting the biggest bump?
A: Our non-Tinder brands, including Match, combined saw 30% growth YOY.

by Akiko Fujita & Melody Hahm
See full article at Yahoo Finance

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Latinx Dating App Chispa Reaches 4M Downloads

PR NEWSWIRE - Apr 1 - Chispa, the largest dating app designed for Latinx singles, reaches a new milestone of 4M downloads this week. Chispa's user base has grown 28% YOY. Chispa is a Match Affinity dating app created in 2017 by Match Group.

See full article at PR Newswire

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Q&A With CEO of Match.com Hesam Hosseini

DMAGAZINE - May 22 - The coronavirus pandemic has forever changed the way singles connect, says CEO of Match and Match Affinity, Hesam Hosseini.

Q: How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis?
A: Our mission of sparking connections has never been more important. We want to do everything we can to help singles feel less isolated and more connected.

Q: Did your business continuity plan work, or were there surprises?
A: We had to reprioritized our roadmap and went to work building new ways for our members to connect.

Q: What are the short-term ramifications for your specific industry?
A: The tools singles are using to connect changed overnight. Now 70% of our members would use video chat; before pandemic, it was only 6%.

Q: Have you found silver linings in these difficult times?
A: I think our team has become closer than ever.

Q: How are you maintaining your company culture?
A: We hold all of our meetings over video and we use Slack constantly. We get together via virtual happy hours, puppy parties, story time with kids, mindfulness activities, and we even celebrated our 25th anniversary over Zoom this week.

Q: What will things look like for your company and industry in another six months?
A: We will likely keep some work-from-home flavor for a little while as we slowly dial back to normal, whatever that may look like.

by Ben Swanger
See full article at DMagazine

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Match Group's New Executive Management Appointments

PRNEWSWIRE - Nov 15 - Match Group has made a series of internal leadership appointments to coincide with Mandy Ginsberg's planned assumption of the Company's CEO role by January 1, 2018. These include:

• Elie Seidman, currently CEO of OkCupid, will become Tinder's new CEO, reporting into Ms. Ginsberg.
• Amarnath Thombre, currently Chief Strategy Officer at Match Group, will become CEO of Match Group Americas, where he will oversee Match, Match Affinity Brands, PlentyOfFish, OkCupid and Match's Latin America businesses, reporting into Ms. Ginsberg.
• Hesam Hosseini, currently CEO of PlentyOfFish, will become CEO of Match and Match Affinity Brands, reporting into Mr. Thombre.

Match Group is actively recruiting to fill the CEO positions at both OkCupid and PlentyOfFish.

See full article a PR Newswire

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Match's New Documentary Ads

MARKETING WEEK - Jan 7 - Match is launching documentary-style series of advertisements to promote its MatchAffinity.com relationship service. The “Going the Distance” TV campaign launches 1 February and will combine non-scripted documentary footage filmed throughout the month of January. MatchAffinity.com suggests compatible relationship matches based on results of an in-depth affinity test and was added to the Match brand portfolio in 2005. It has ~10 M users. Match says it has 50-60% of the UK online dating market share across its brands which include Match.com and Dating Direct. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKETING WEEK

Mark Brooks: Match Affinity is Europe focused and was Meetic's effort at a personality profiling site. A la Chemistry.com, in the USA.

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The Science Of Online Dating

TIMES ONLINE - Apr 11 - Relationship science is an increasingly respectable field of academic study. Dr Gian Gonzaga and his team at the eHarmony Labs promises to match its customers using its patented 29 dimensions of compatibility, including sexual passion, anger management, appearance, intellect, obstreperousness, spirituality and emotional health. Other dating sites also employ complex algorithms based on psychometric testing, such as PerfectMatch, Chemistry, Plentyoffish, True, Parship and Matchaffinity. They all like to dismiss each other’s compatibility models. Plentyoffish, for example, thinks people should be matched on their differences. The exception is OKCupid, which is strongly against psychometric testing because, according to Sam Yagan, one of the Harvard mathematicians who founded it, “eHarmony’s patronising belief is that they know what’s best and you need help. We believe you know what you’re looking for and put the power in the user’s hands”. The industry analyst Mark Brooks sees psychological testing as an important part of their increasing credibility and market growth. “Internet dating services will get amazing,” he says. “The science will develop.” Brooks believes personality profiling is the future of matchmaking, and agrees with the eHarmony line: “People don’t know what they want. They need help.” FULL ARTICLE @ TIMES ONLINE

See all posts on PerfectMatch         See all posts on True
See all posts on Chemistry.com      See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on Plentyoffish           See all posts on Parship
See all posts on MatchAffinity         See all posts on OkCupid

 

This week: news on Match.com, SNAP Interactive, EasyDate, Zoosk, AreYouInterested, GameCrush and Executive Dating.

Internet Dating Industry Weekly News Feb 9th, 2010

This is the news for January 20th through February 1st, 2010. Here is the news we covered:

• Real Simple Magazing ranks top dating sites
• Avid Life Media pushing for an IPO
• Match.com launches MatchAffinity
• iovation shows strong sucess in 2009
• 2010 iDate Awards results

Match.com Launches New Relationship Site

PARADIGM SHIFT - Jan 21 - MatchAffinity is a new relationship site. Whilst match.com is focussed on dating and allowing members to look around for suitable people, MatchAffinity helps people to find their partner through some more scientific means. Each user takes a simple psychometric style test and will then be matched with other members on the site based on a percentage compatibility ratio.

The full article was originally published at The Paradigm Shift, but is no longer available.

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